There exists a necessity to transfer (capturing and transporting) queen bees from hive to hive, particularly from bee breeders' hives to bee keepers' hives. The bees must be captured and conventionally this is achieved by manually picking up the queen bee and inserting it, with a few other bees, into a small cage having a plugged queen bee exit opening. It is generally not practical for the beekeeper to wear gloves, as the bees must be handled manually: thus there exists a risk that they will sting the beekeeper. One bee only may be transferred at a time. The queen bee and the cage are subsequently placed in a new hive and the exit opening is unplugged to permit egress of the queen bee into the new hive. The cages are typically formed of wood with a metal screen or plastic cover. This is painstaking, time consuming and requires professional beekeepers or bee breeders.
There is also known a device known as a Queen Catcher, available from Kelley Corporation, West Germany, which comprises two pivotably joined housing portions which may be selectably opened and closed. The device is operative to scoop up bees but sometimes scoops up also a portion of the honeycomb. There are provided apertures of dimensions which allow captured workers to exit the device, so that only the queen will remain inside. This device is difficult to use and there is a risk of harm to the queen or other bees during capture as a result of the pincer movement of the device. The device is not intended for transport of the queen, since it does not include means for nourishing the queen and does not comprise means for releasing the queen into the new hive. Thus it is necessary to manually transfer the queen from the device to a transport device for conveying the queen to a different location.
Nursery cages comprises one or a plurality of integrally formed units for hatching one or more queens from one or more grubs placed in the unit are known which are rather inconvenient to use. Each such unit comprises a grub containing device called a queen cell which is laid upon the top surface of the unit, and is not firmly attached to the top surface of the unit and may easily become detached, with the risk of queen escape. If a plurality of units is provided, the queens, once hatched, must be separately and manually transferred to their hives, since the units are integrally formed. Nursery cages are not designed for transport and are mainly used for research purposes and for artificial insemination.
Nursery cages and queen cells are commercially available from Kelley Corporation, West Germany.
Queen banks, comprising housing and a plurality of stacked queen bee enclosures are known. Each is formed with apertures which allow worker bees located interiorly of the housing but exteriorly of the enclosures to nourish the queen without having direct access thereto. The enclosures are generally box-like in shape and consequently, it is difficult to stack them compactly and sturdily without preventing blockage of apertures in some of the enclosures, by adjacent enclosures.